Moon Asian Bistro closed recently, but a new restaurant will open in the same location soon.
Prime46forty, a martini and wine bar featuring upscale dining, is scheduled to open its doors in mid- to late September.
Carroll Bull and Timothy Westby-Gibson, the manager and chef of the Williamsburg Winery’s Café Provencal, had been searching for a space to start their own restaurant for the past two years.
While Westby-Gibson will serve as the restaurant’s chef, he and Bull will be co-owners and co-managers of the restaurant, which is in the corner of Monticello Marketplace near TJ Maxx and Rack Room Shoes at 4640 Monticello Ave. Shackleford’s used to occupy the space.
The menu will feature about 15 to 20 “small plates,” martinis and a lot of wine.
“We’re going to be serving some prime beef and we’ll have quite a lot of appetizers on the menu,” Bull said. “… We’re going to find wine that hopefully not a lot of people in town have.”
The restaurant has also gotten the go-ahead from the building’s landlord to feature jazz bands on the weekend.
Bull formerly owned A. Carroll’s Bistro, where Westby-Gibson also worked as a chef, on Prince George Street.
In 1999, Bull was charged with two counts of embezzlement for failure to pay more than $200,000 in taxes and fees; she was later charged with four counts of fail to collect and account for tax and four counts of probation violation. Bull paid restitution by selling her business and all her assets and moved on with her life.
Because of Bull’s effort to pay back the debt, the judge reversed her guilty plea into a not guilty verdict in 2010.
“I’m a completely different person since then,” she said. “… I’ve paid my dues.”
